Behind a very generic band name -- which saluted an echo box used often in their recordings -- lurks some of the best
rocksteady
-into-
reggae
music ever recorded. To understate the case,
Sound Dimension
was simply the band put together in 1967 to accompany some of
Studio 1
's most famous artists:
John Holt
,
Alton Ellis
the Heptones
Ken Boothe
, and others. That fact alone makes them important enough; the fact that the group included most of the great Jamaican musicians that had emerged around the time
Don Drummond
went to jail makes them even more important.
was a loose collective indeed, but it often included
Jackie Mittoo
Leroy Sibbles
Eric Frater
Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace
Ernest Ranglin
, and
Roland Alphonso
, among the best at their respective instruments that
has ever seen. (Several had played with
Drummond
in
the Skatalites
before the group dissolved upon his imprisonment.) The
Soul Jazz
collection
Jamaica Soul Shake, Vol. 1
collects 16 instrumentals (or near-instrumentals) that had previously ranged from rare to untraceable -- these are not the singles the band served on as session men, nor are they exactly the "versions" they recorded for the B-sides. These are loose studio jams of their own composition (
Mittoo
's name appears often as a composer), and they have the laid-back, summery feel of prime
. Also like
's "solo" recordings, these are dark and brooding, closer to the gritty roots sound that would soon flower in
than the sweeter sound of
soul
-influenced
. ~ John Bush